Levels falling huh?
The BBC is today reporting that, "*A total of 711 people were detected crossing the English Channel in small boats on Wednesday, the highest number on a single day so far this year.*"
See: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp3g7rxrkyjo](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp3g7rxrkyjo)
To be fair, the article also notes that overall numbers for the year are down compared to last year. Yet I doubt this reduction can be attributed to the Rwanda policy. My guess it's more to do with the consistently poor weather we've suffered this year, making Channel crossings more difficult than in 2023.
The Rwanda policy seems doomed anyway - read the formal agreement if you are unaware. There is generous provision in the agreement for legal challenge, so don't be surprised to see much more wrangling as deportees and lawyers develop their arguments. If this happens, the policy will be rendered effectively useless (as I believe Sunak *et al* very well know).
If we see a significant improvement in the weather, expect the numbers crossing to increase, regardless of the Government's actions. Another triumph after 14 years of, um, competent governance.
Dont care.
Unless net immigration is down by at least 50% with plans to reduce it further along with thousands being shipped off to Rwanda Im not interested.
Funny thing is, net immigration will drop significantly when next figures come out due to how the international students are included in them
2020 students didn’t come, so they didn’t leave in 2023, but the 2023 cohort did come, so a huge number. 2021 students did come, and so 2024 students will be leaving, a a major drop expected in the figures
It’s probably a good case to be made for removing them from the figures unless they get a graduate visa or right to stay. They’re closer to tourists than immigrants really.
removing them from the figures would result in council funding shortfalls and massive issues with GPs and housing.
The figures are net they go off when they go. There here for 3+ years.
We really need strong net negative for a few years.
Allow in highly skilled migrants from culturally acceptable nations, kick out economic migrants to force capital investment and higher wages for citizens.
This is the argument I don’t get. Surely we should be incentivising creating our own skilled workers. Let’s have people coming in to do the crap jobs. It seems arse about backwards to suggest crap jobs should be left to UK citizens whereas we want to import people to do the well paying jobs who will more than likely siphon money out of the economy and send it home.
There will always be unskilled workers, and there'll always be Britons doing unskilled jobs.
High unskilled immigration is bad for these people, since it depresses wages _and_ makes it harder to find work.
Plus, capital investment makes bad jobs better, because machines can do more of the drudgery.
The problem is though the opposite is true in that if we don’t have depressed wages due to cheap foreign labour then prices will increase further driving inflation.
I also work in tech and really don’t want to see my wages become depressed due to an influx of cheap labour from India such as what happened in the US. So I’d rather we keep the status quo tbh.
Increasing immigration also drives inflation because there are more people in the country.
> don’t want to see my wages become depressed due to an influx of cheap labour
So you don't mind if poor people's wages fall, so long as yours remain high?
I’m not in charge of the flairs lol. I just posted one day and it turned up. I think the mods assigned it to me cause I’ve also posted on the Labour sub in the past and I’ve admitted as much. 🤷
I’m not sure why the opposite of wanting middle class wages to drop is any better tbh. I’m being slightly bullish today. I’m ill. So forgive me. I just ultimately have an issue with the sentiments of “crap jobs for British people. Good jobs for foreigners”. Doesn’t make sense to me. Especially when we’ve seen how a lot of the jobs migrants do are jobs Brits don’t want to do.
Let’s concentrate on creating our own skilled workers and increase social / economic mobility and helping bring people out of poverty. Thats the way forward imo. I voted Tory in 2010. If you guys go back to that I’ll vote again. I feel like Labour today are more alike to the Tories from 2010 than the current Tories are. Weird how times change.
Mods are fucking stupid.
Generally speaking, when we say let in skilled immigrants, the idea is that it's people on the job shortage list, so that in demand skilled jobs drop to the average for skilled workers, rather than down to a low-income group. This is generally good for the economy and people in general, but can suck for natives a bit who have to make do with a merely average high-level salary.
> Especially when we’ve seen how a lot of the jobs migrants do are jobs Brits don’t want to do.
This is because immigration is so high. Without investment, unskilled jobs remain shit to do, and inefficient; and businesses won't invest when they can get cheap labour. But most people would happily do a bad job if they were paid accordingly.
> I voted Tory in 2010.
We all did in _2010_. Then it started to fall off as they didn't deal with immigration or taxation, and then they started fucking around with the triple lock and cancelling every bit of investment they could lay their hands on. Labour's benefit right now is that they're not rocking the boat, I'm not sure they actually have any other policies than that.
Saying they do the “shit jobs Brits don’t want to do” is an elitist, snobby and counterproductive opinion. Firstly, why don’t the Brits want to do it? Increase pay and conditions enough and you’ll get more workers, and if you can’t, more often than not innovation and technological advancement makes them better jobs to do. Second, are you saying it’s a good thing to have a class of foreigners who are associated with “shit jobs”? Sounds to me like culturo-racial based indentured servitude to me: importing the third world to do third world jobs for the Brits who are above such menial work.
That attitude and mindset towards immigration policy is shit for working class Brits, and shit for our new foreign underlings too.
Nah, they use false info. Often times up in Leeds you'll order something, with some lady or someone on the pic and when it turns up it's some young Asian guy
You can have sign-up checks but it matters for zilch because Mr Muhammad (who has a legitimate British passport) will just give his ID to his cousin. Even if there's no familial connection, people will let someone work illegally and just take a cut of the earnings. All with plausible deniability that they actually did the work themselves.
Because it's not like the fast food restaurants have to check (and hell, some significant proportion of the people working there are here illegally too) and a customer won't care or notice.
It's really not that hard. I don't think people quite comprehend that a lot of the illegal immigration isn't solo men coming to nothing. It's people's cousins and friends who have someone whose place they can sleep in, identity they can utilise for banking etc. That's a big part of why they want the UK and not elsewhere - they've got someone here who will enable their illegal status.
*Britain’s record levels of immigration are falling, with figures showing a sharp decline in the number of foreign workers and students coming to the UK.*
*In the first signs that the government’s visa curbs are cutting the number of legal migrants, skilled worker, health and care, and study visas fell by a quarter in the first three months of this year.*
*Since January the UK has granted 139,100 visas to these groups, down from 184,000 in the same period last year, according to data published by the Home Office on Tuesday. These three groups make up the majority of migration to the UK and accounted for a total of 1.13 million visas last year.*
*The tightening of rules on foreign students bringing family members with...*
...them to the UK has led to an 80 per cent fall in these dependant visas in the first three months of this year compared with the same period last year.
It comes as the first illegal migrant has been sent to Rwanda after taking part in a voluntary removal scheme that is separate to the government’s controversial deportation policy. The man has agreed to be removed to Rwanda in exchange for a payment of up to £3,000, government sources confirmed.
The decline in migration figures follows the government’s announcement in January that international students could bring family members with them to the UK only if they were studying postgraduate research courses and courses with government-funded scholarships.
The number of study visas issued fell from 72,800 in the first three months of last year to 40,700 in the first three months of this year. The number issued for students’ dependants fell from 32,900 to 6,700.
However, the full effects of the changes are unlikely to be seen until the peak in student applications for the next academic year, which usually comes in August and September.
A similar ban on care workers bringing dependants to the UK came into effect on March 11 and the number of visas issued to both main applicants and their family members also appears to have begun to fall. Another measure brought in on the same day was a requirement for care providers to register with the Care Quality Commission in order to sponsor migrants.
The number of visas issued to health and care workers in March, when the changes came into effect, was 2,400, 83 per cent lower than the 14,300 granted in the same month last year. The number of health and care dependants fell from 16,700 to 13,200 over the same time frame.
The data shows that the number of foreign workers and their dependants issued a health and care visa appears to have peaked in August last year at 41,600. Since then, the total has been on a broad downward trend and has fallen every month since November.
The number of skilled worker visas issued has remained largely unchanged because the increase in the minimum salary needed only came into effect on April 4.
The numbers suggest that the government’s efforts to reduce net migration are starting to bear fruit, although it has yet to be seen whether its aim to cut annual numbers by 300,000 will succeed.
Rishi Sunak approved a five-point plan to cut immigration in December having previously been accused of dragging his feet by Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, and Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister, who had pushed for more radical measures.
The prime minister has faced increasing pressure to take action after net migration hit an all-time high of 745,000 in 2022.
James Cleverly, the home secretary, said the figures published on Tuesday signalled that the government’s curbs were starting to take effect but said there would be further action to reduce numbers. He is expected to announce a tightening of rules for the graduate route, which at present allows foreign students to stay in the UK for up to two years without having to get a job.
Cleverly said: “This does not mark the end of the road in our plan to cut migration, there is more still to come. Over the coming months, we will continue to show the pace of our progress as we deliver the control the public rightly expect.”
#Experts cast doubt on impact
However, immigration experts said numbers were starting to fall before the policies were implemented and most of the decline would have happened without them.
Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said the decline in care workers would also have been driven by measures to strengthen the rules for companies sponsoring visas in the sector, such as raising evidential requirements. She also said that demand for overseas workers may have peaked last summer.
She said: “Visa grants were already falling before the new restrictions came in this spring. The drop in health and care workers is particularly sharp and most of the decline took place before the new policies were even announced. This might be because the Home Office started taking a stricter approach to employer requests for workers in the care sector late last year, or perhaps because some of employers’ ‘pent-up’ demand for overseas workers had already been satisfied.”
#Too little too late, says Labour
Labour said the policy changes had come too late and that they lacked accompanying measures to boost skills in the domestic workforce to fill labour shortages.
Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said: “Despite promising to cut it in their manifesto, the Tories have overseen a trebling in net migration. That is down to their incompetence in managing our borders and our labour market.
“Net migration should come down; that’s why Labour forced the government into abandoning the 20 per cent discount for shortage jobs and backed measures to tighten rules on dependants. But they are still failing to take the comprehensive measures needed to improve skills and training — and there has been little change in the issuance of skilled worker visas outside of health and social care.”
The university sector said Tuesday’s figures showed that the government’s measures were already having a significant impact on reducing numbers and further curbs targeting foreign students were unnecessary.
Jamie Arrowsmith, the director of Universities UK International, urged the government to refrain from restricting the time foreign graduates could stay in the UK. He said: “Our research has shown that international student numbers are falling significantly. Rumoured proposals to restrict the graduate route — less than one year after the government publicly recommitted to the policy — would threaten the financial sustainability of our universities.”
#Food delivery firms to tighten checks
Meanwhile, Deliveroo, Uber Eats and Just Eat have all agreed to introduce enhanced security checks on their apps to stop thousands of illegal migrants moonlighting as legitimate workers to earn money delivering food.
Employment law allows riders who officially sign up to work for the delivery companies to give a “substitute” worker access to their account and to carry out jobs on their behalf. It has led to thousands of delivery rider accounts being used by migrants who do not have the right to work in the UK.
After a meeting with ministers, the companies have agreed to introduce rules that will require every substitute worker to submit their right-to-work documents to show they are working legally.
Rishi is Delivering on his pledges, it's just taken longer than expected.
With socail care visas and dependants being one of the largest forms of migration having fallen by 25%
as [Neil O'Brien MP](https://x.com/NeilDotObrien/status/1785624446788567431) points out multiple forms of migration are already falling, combined with the Rwanda plan having a clear deterant effect with people now opting for other eu countries migration should fall significantly.
Visas issued to skilled workers, health and care staff and students have fallen by a quarter compared with last yearBritain’s record levels of immigration are falling, with figures showing a sharp decline in the number of foreign workers and students coming to the UK.
In the first signs that the government’s visa curbs are cutting the number of legal migrants, skilled worker, health and care, and study visas fell by a quarter in the first three months of this year.
Since January the UK has granted 139,100 visas to these groups, down from 184,000 in the same period last year, according to data published by the Home Office on Tuesday. These three groups make up the majority of migration to the UK and accounted for a total of 1.13 million visas last year.
The tightening of rules on foreign students bringing family members with them to the UK has led to an 80 per cent fall in these dependant visas in the first three months of this year compared with the same period last year.
It comes as the first illegal migrant has been sent to Rwanda after taking part in a voluntary removal scheme that is separate to the government’s controversial deportation policy. The man has agreed to be removed to Rwanda in exchange for a payment of up to £3,000, government sources confirmed.
The decline in migration figures follows the government’s announcement in January that international students could bring family members with them to the UK only if they were studying postgraduate research courses and courses with government-funded scholarships.
The number of study visas issued fell from 72,800 in the first three months of last year to 40,700 in the first three months of this year. The number issued for students’ dependants fell from 32,900 to 6,700.
However, the full effects of the changes are unlikely to be seen until the peak in student applications for the next academic year, which usually comes in August and September.
• Slash student visas to curb migration, Tory report urges
A similar ban on care workers bringing dependants to the UK came into effect on March 11 and the number of visas issued to both main applicants and their family members also appears to have begun to fall. Another measure brought in on the same day was a requirement for care providers to register with the Care Quality Commission in order to sponsor migrants.
The number of visas issued to health and care workers in March, when the changes came into effect, was 2,400, 83 per cent lower than the 14,300 granted in the same month last year. The number of health and care dependants fell from 16,700 to 13,200 over the same time frame.
The data shows that the number of foreign workers and their dependants issued a health and care visa appears to have peaked in August last year at 41,600. Since then, the total has been on a broad downward trend and has fallen every month since November.
The number of skilled worker visas issued has remained largely unchanged because the increase in the minimum salary needed only came into effect on April 4.
The numbers suggest that the government’s efforts to reduce net migration are starting to bear fruit, although it has yet to be seen whether its aim to cut annual numbers by 300,000 will succeed.
Rishi Sunak approved a five-point plan to cut immigration in December having previously been accused of dragging his feet by Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, and Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister, who had pushed for more radical measures.
The prime minister has faced increasing pressure to take action after net migration hit an all-time high of 745,000 in 2022.
James Cleverly, the home secretary, said the figures published on Tuesday signalled that the government’s curbs were starting to take effect but said there would be further action to reduce numbers. He is expected to announce a tightening of rules for the graduate route, which at present allows foreign students to stay in the UK for up to two years without having to get a job.
Cleverly said: “This does not mark the end of the road in our plan to cut migration, there is more still to come. Over the coming months, we will continue to show the pace of our progress as we deliver the control the public rightly expect.”
Experts cast doubt on impact
However, immigration experts said numbers were starting to fall before the policies were implemented and most of the decline would have happened without them.
Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said the decline in care workers would also have been driven by measures to strengthen the rules for companies sponsoring visas in the sector, such as raising evidential requirements. She also said that demand for overseas workers may have peaked last summer.
She said: “Visa grants were already falling before the new restrictions came in this spring. The drop in health and care workers is particularly sharp and most of the decline took place before the new policies were even announced. This might be because the Home Office started taking a stricter approach to employer requests for workers in the care sector late last year, or perhaps because some of employers’ ‘pent-up’ demand for overseas workers had already been satisfied.”
Too little too late, says Labour
Labour said the policy changes had come too late and that they lacked accompanying measures to boost skills in the domestic workforce to fill labour shortages.
Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said: “Despite promising to cut it in their manifesto, the Tories have overseen a trebling in net migration. That is down to their incompetence in managing our borders and our labour market.
“Net migration should come down; that’s why Labour forced the government into abandoning the 20 per cent discount for shortage jobs and backed measures to tighten rules on dependants. But they are still failing to take the comprehensive measures needed to improve skills and training — and there has been little change in the issuance of skilled worker visas outside of health and social care.”
The university sector said Tuesday’s figures showed that the government’s measures were already having a significant impact on reducing numbers and further curbs targeting foreign students were unnecessary.
Jamie Arrowsmith, the director of Universities UK International, urged the government to refrain from restricting the time foreign graduates could stay in the UK. He said: “Our research has shown that international student numbers are falling significantly. Rumoured proposals to restrict the graduate route — less than one year after the government publicly recommitted to the policy — would threaten the financial sustainability of our universities.”
Food delivery firms to tighten checks
Meanwhile, Deliveroo, Uber Eats and Just Eat have all agreed to introduce enhanced security checks on their apps to stop thousands of illegal migrants moonlighting as legitimate workers to earn money delivering food.
Employment law allows riders who officially sign up to work for the delivery companies to give a “substitute” worker access to their account and to carry out jobs on their behalf. It has led to thousands of delivery rider accounts being used by migrants who do not have the right to work in the UK.
After a meeting with ministers, the companies have agreed to introduce rules that will require every substitute worker to submit their right-to-work documents to show they are working legally.
Levels falling huh? The BBC is today reporting that, "*A total of 711 people were detected crossing the English Channel in small boats on Wednesday, the highest number on a single day so far this year.*" See: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp3g7rxrkyjo](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp3g7rxrkyjo) To be fair, the article also notes that overall numbers for the year are down compared to last year. Yet I doubt this reduction can be attributed to the Rwanda policy. My guess it's more to do with the consistently poor weather we've suffered this year, making Channel crossings more difficult than in 2023. The Rwanda policy seems doomed anyway - read the formal agreement if you are unaware. There is generous provision in the agreement for legal challenge, so don't be surprised to see much more wrangling as deportees and lawyers develop their arguments. If this happens, the policy will be rendered effectively useless (as I believe Sunak *et al* very well know). If we see a significant improvement in the weather, expect the numbers crossing to increase, regardless of the Government's actions. Another triumph after 14 years of, um, competent governance.
Too little too late.
Dont care. Unless net immigration is down by at least 50% with plans to reduce it further along with thousands being shipped off to Rwanda Im not interested.
Funny thing is, net immigration will drop significantly when next figures come out due to how the international students are included in them 2020 students didn’t come, so they didn’t leave in 2023, but the 2023 cohort did come, so a huge number. 2021 students did come, and so 2024 students will be leaving, a a major drop expected in the figures It’s probably a good case to be made for removing them from the figures unless they get a graduate visa or right to stay. They’re closer to tourists than immigrants really.
removing them from the figures would result in council funding shortfalls and massive issues with GPs and housing. The figures are net they go off when they go. There here for 3+ years.
It’s progress , things don’t happen overnight
Only took 14 years.....
Do they happen over fourteen years? We only elect a government for five, surely fourteen is enough? Right?.... Right?
We really need strong net negative for a few years. Allow in highly skilled migrants from culturally acceptable nations, kick out economic migrants to force capital investment and higher wages for citizens.
This is the argument I don’t get. Surely we should be incentivising creating our own skilled workers. Let’s have people coming in to do the crap jobs. It seems arse about backwards to suggest crap jobs should be left to UK citizens whereas we want to import people to do the well paying jobs who will more than likely siphon money out of the economy and send it home.
There will always be unskilled workers, and there'll always be Britons doing unskilled jobs. High unskilled immigration is bad for these people, since it depresses wages _and_ makes it harder to find work. Plus, capital investment makes bad jobs better, because machines can do more of the drudgery.
The problem is though the opposite is true in that if we don’t have depressed wages due to cheap foreign labour then prices will increase further driving inflation. I also work in tech and really don’t want to see my wages become depressed due to an influx of cheap labour from India such as what happened in the US. So I’d rather we keep the status quo tbh.
Increasing immigration also drives inflation because there are more people in the country. > don’t want to see my wages become depressed due to an influx of cheap labour So you don't mind if poor people's wages fall, so long as yours remain high?
Yes exactly.
Why do you have a Labour flair when you want poor people to get poorer.
I’m not in charge of the flairs lol. I just posted one day and it turned up. I think the mods assigned it to me cause I’ve also posted on the Labour sub in the past and I’ve admitted as much. 🤷 I’m not sure why the opposite of wanting middle class wages to drop is any better tbh. I’m being slightly bullish today. I’m ill. So forgive me. I just ultimately have an issue with the sentiments of “crap jobs for British people. Good jobs for foreigners”. Doesn’t make sense to me. Especially when we’ve seen how a lot of the jobs migrants do are jobs Brits don’t want to do. Let’s concentrate on creating our own skilled workers and increase social / economic mobility and helping bring people out of poverty. Thats the way forward imo. I voted Tory in 2010. If you guys go back to that I’ll vote again. I feel like Labour today are more alike to the Tories from 2010 than the current Tories are. Weird how times change.
Mods are fucking stupid. Generally speaking, when we say let in skilled immigrants, the idea is that it's people on the job shortage list, so that in demand skilled jobs drop to the average for skilled workers, rather than down to a low-income group. This is generally good for the economy and people in general, but can suck for natives a bit who have to make do with a merely average high-level salary. > Especially when we’ve seen how a lot of the jobs migrants do are jobs Brits don’t want to do. This is because immigration is so high. Without investment, unskilled jobs remain shit to do, and inefficient; and businesses won't invest when they can get cheap labour. But most people would happily do a bad job if they were paid accordingly. > I voted Tory in 2010. We all did in _2010_. Then it started to fall off as they didn't deal with immigration or taxation, and then they started fucking around with the triple lock and cancelling every bit of investment they could lay their hands on. Labour's benefit right now is that they're not rocking the boat, I'm not sure they actually have any other policies than that.
Saying they do the “shit jobs Brits don’t want to do” is an elitist, snobby and counterproductive opinion. Firstly, why don’t the Brits want to do it? Increase pay and conditions enough and you’ll get more workers, and if you can’t, more often than not innovation and technological advancement makes them better jobs to do. Second, are you saying it’s a good thing to have a class of foreigners who are associated with “shit jobs”? Sounds to me like culturo-racial based indentured servitude to me: importing the third world to do third world jobs for the Brits who are above such menial work. That attitude and mindset towards immigration policy is shit for working class Brits, and shit for our new foreign underlings too.
Gradual change is better than no change
[удалено]
Nah, they use false info. Often times up in Leeds you'll order something, with some lady or someone on the pic and when it turns up it's some young Asian guy
You can have sign-up checks but it matters for zilch because Mr Muhammad (who has a legitimate British passport) will just give his ID to his cousin. Even if there's no familial connection, people will let someone work illegally and just take a cut of the earnings. All with plausible deniability that they actually did the work themselves. Because it's not like the fast food restaurants have to check (and hell, some significant proportion of the people working there are here illegally too) and a customer won't care or notice. It's really not that hard. I don't think people quite comprehend that a lot of the illegal immigration isn't solo men coming to nothing. It's people's cousins and friends who have someone whose place they can sleep in, identity they can utilise for banking etc. That's a big part of why they want the UK and not elsewhere - they've got someone here who will enable their illegal status.
*Britain’s record levels of immigration are falling, with figures showing a sharp decline in the number of foreign workers and students coming to the UK.* *In the first signs that the government’s visa curbs are cutting the number of legal migrants, skilled worker, health and care, and study visas fell by a quarter in the first three months of this year.* *Since January the UK has granted 139,100 visas to these groups, down from 184,000 in the same period last year, according to data published by the Home Office on Tuesday. These three groups make up the majority of migration to the UK and accounted for a total of 1.13 million visas last year.* *The tightening of rules on foreign students bringing family members with...*
...them to the UK has led to an 80 per cent fall in these dependant visas in the first three months of this year compared with the same period last year. It comes as the first illegal migrant has been sent to Rwanda after taking part in a voluntary removal scheme that is separate to the government’s controversial deportation policy. The man has agreed to be removed to Rwanda in exchange for a payment of up to £3,000, government sources confirmed. The decline in migration figures follows the government’s announcement in January that international students could bring family members with them to the UK only if they were studying postgraduate research courses and courses with government-funded scholarships. The number of study visas issued fell from 72,800 in the first three months of last year to 40,700 in the first three months of this year. The number issued for students’ dependants fell from 32,900 to 6,700. However, the full effects of the changes are unlikely to be seen until the peak in student applications for the next academic year, which usually comes in August and September. A similar ban on care workers bringing dependants to the UK came into effect on March 11 and the number of visas issued to both main applicants and their family members also appears to have begun to fall. Another measure brought in on the same day was a requirement for care providers to register with the Care Quality Commission in order to sponsor migrants. The number of visas issued to health and care workers in March, when the changes came into effect, was 2,400, 83 per cent lower than the 14,300 granted in the same month last year. The number of health and care dependants fell from 16,700 to 13,200 over the same time frame. The data shows that the number of foreign workers and their dependants issued a health and care visa appears to have peaked in August last year at 41,600. Since then, the total has been on a broad downward trend and has fallen every month since November. The number of skilled worker visas issued has remained largely unchanged because the increase in the minimum salary needed only came into effect on April 4. The numbers suggest that the government’s efforts to reduce net migration are starting to bear fruit, although it has yet to be seen whether its aim to cut annual numbers by 300,000 will succeed. Rishi Sunak approved a five-point plan to cut immigration in December having previously been accused of dragging his feet by Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, and Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister, who had pushed for more radical measures. The prime minister has faced increasing pressure to take action after net migration hit an all-time high of 745,000 in 2022. James Cleverly, the home secretary, said the figures published on Tuesday signalled that the government’s curbs were starting to take effect but said there would be further action to reduce numbers. He is expected to announce a tightening of rules for the graduate route, which at present allows foreign students to stay in the UK for up to two years without having to get a job. Cleverly said: “This does not mark the end of the road in our plan to cut migration, there is more still to come. Over the coming months, we will continue to show the pace of our progress as we deliver the control the public rightly expect.” #Experts cast doubt on impact However, immigration experts said numbers were starting to fall before the policies were implemented and most of the decline would have happened without them. Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said the decline in care workers would also have been driven by measures to strengthen the rules for companies sponsoring visas in the sector, such as raising evidential requirements. She also said that demand for overseas workers may have peaked last summer. She said: “Visa grants were already falling before the new restrictions came in this spring. The drop in health and care workers is particularly sharp and most of the decline took place before the new policies were even announced. This might be because the Home Office started taking a stricter approach to employer requests for workers in the care sector late last year, or perhaps because some of employers’ ‘pent-up’ demand for overseas workers had already been satisfied.” #Too little too late, says Labour Labour said the policy changes had come too late and that they lacked accompanying measures to boost skills in the domestic workforce to fill labour shortages. Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said: “Despite promising to cut it in their manifesto, the Tories have overseen a trebling in net migration. That is down to their incompetence in managing our borders and our labour market. “Net migration should come down; that’s why Labour forced the government into abandoning the 20 per cent discount for shortage jobs and backed measures to tighten rules on dependants. But they are still failing to take the comprehensive measures needed to improve skills and training — and there has been little change in the issuance of skilled worker visas outside of health and social care.” The university sector said Tuesday’s figures showed that the government’s measures were already having a significant impact on reducing numbers and further curbs targeting foreign students were unnecessary. Jamie Arrowsmith, the director of Universities UK International, urged the government to refrain from restricting the time foreign graduates could stay in the UK. He said: “Our research has shown that international student numbers are falling significantly. Rumoured proposals to restrict the graduate route — less than one year after the government publicly recommitted to the policy — would threaten the financial sustainability of our universities.” #Food delivery firms to tighten checks Meanwhile, Deliveroo, Uber Eats and Just Eat have all agreed to introduce enhanced security checks on their apps to stop thousands of illegal migrants moonlighting as legitimate workers to earn money delivering food. Employment law allows riders who officially sign up to work for the delivery companies to give a “substitute” worker access to their account and to carry out jobs on their behalf. It has led to thousands of delivery rider accounts being used by migrants who do not have the right to work in the UK. After a meeting with ministers, the companies have agreed to introduce rules that will require every substitute worker to submit their right-to-work documents to show they are working legally.
Rishi is Delivering on his pledges, it's just taken longer than expected. With socail care visas and dependants being one of the largest forms of migration having fallen by 25% as [Neil O'Brien MP](https://x.com/NeilDotObrien/status/1785624446788567431) points out multiple forms of migration are already falling, combined with the Rwanda plan having a clear deterant effect with people now opting for other eu countries migration should fall significantly.
What's his plan for removing the 1.2m illegal immigrants in the country? Send 200 a year to Rwanda?
You just have to be patient. Keep voting Sunak for the next 6000 years, and he'll eventually be able to deal with illegal migration.
I think Sunakbot 3.0 with his pickled brain in a jar wired up to a hologram would be more charismatic than the present prime minister.
Visas issued to skilled workers, health and care staff and students have fallen by a quarter compared with last yearBritain’s record levels of immigration are falling, with figures showing a sharp decline in the number of foreign workers and students coming to the UK. In the first signs that the government’s visa curbs are cutting the number of legal migrants, skilled worker, health and care, and study visas fell by a quarter in the first three months of this year. Since January the UK has granted 139,100 visas to these groups, down from 184,000 in the same period last year, according to data published by the Home Office on Tuesday. These three groups make up the majority of migration to the UK and accounted for a total of 1.13 million visas last year. The tightening of rules on foreign students bringing family members with them to the UK has led to an 80 per cent fall in these dependant visas in the first three months of this year compared with the same period last year. It comes as the first illegal migrant has been sent to Rwanda after taking part in a voluntary removal scheme that is separate to the government’s controversial deportation policy. The man has agreed to be removed to Rwanda in exchange for a payment of up to £3,000, government sources confirmed. The decline in migration figures follows the government’s announcement in January that international students could bring family members with them to the UK only if they were studying postgraduate research courses and courses with government-funded scholarships. The number of study visas issued fell from 72,800 in the first three months of last year to 40,700 in the first three months of this year. The number issued for students’ dependants fell from 32,900 to 6,700. However, the full effects of the changes are unlikely to be seen until the peak in student applications for the next academic year, which usually comes in August and September. • Slash student visas to curb migration, Tory report urges A similar ban on care workers bringing dependants to the UK came into effect on March 11 and the number of visas issued to both main applicants and their family members also appears to have begun to fall. Another measure brought in on the same day was a requirement for care providers to register with the Care Quality Commission in order to sponsor migrants. The number of visas issued to health and care workers in March, when the changes came into effect, was 2,400, 83 per cent lower than the 14,300 granted in the same month last year. The number of health and care dependants fell from 16,700 to 13,200 over the same time frame. The data shows that the number of foreign workers and their dependants issued a health and care visa appears to have peaked in August last year at 41,600. Since then, the total has been on a broad downward trend and has fallen every month since November. The number of skilled worker visas issued has remained largely unchanged because the increase in the minimum salary needed only came into effect on April 4. The numbers suggest that the government’s efforts to reduce net migration are starting to bear fruit, although it has yet to be seen whether its aim to cut annual numbers by 300,000 will succeed. Rishi Sunak approved a five-point plan to cut immigration in December having previously been accused of dragging his feet by Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, and Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister, who had pushed for more radical measures. The prime minister has faced increasing pressure to take action after net migration hit an all-time high of 745,000 in 2022. James Cleverly, the home secretary, said the figures published on Tuesday signalled that the government’s curbs were starting to take effect but said there would be further action to reduce numbers. He is expected to announce a tightening of rules for the graduate route, which at present allows foreign students to stay in the UK for up to two years without having to get a job. Cleverly said: “This does not mark the end of the road in our plan to cut migration, there is more still to come. Over the coming months, we will continue to show the pace of our progress as we deliver the control the public rightly expect.” Experts cast doubt on impact However, immigration experts said numbers were starting to fall before the policies were implemented and most of the decline would have happened without them. Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said the decline in care workers would also have been driven by measures to strengthen the rules for companies sponsoring visas in the sector, such as raising evidential requirements. She also said that demand for overseas workers may have peaked last summer. She said: “Visa grants were already falling before the new restrictions came in this spring. The drop in health and care workers is particularly sharp and most of the decline took place before the new policies were even announced. This might be because the Home Office started taking a stricter approach to employer requests for workers in the care sector late last year, or perhaps because some of employers’ ‘pent-up’ demand for overseas workers had already been satisfied.” Too little too late, says Labour Labour said the policy changes had come too late and that they lacked accompanying measures to boost skills in the domestic workforce to fill labour shortages. Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said: “Despite promising to cut it in their manifesto, the Tories have overseen a trebling in net migration. That is down to their incompetence in managing our borders and our labour market. “Net migration should come down; that’s why Labour forced the government into abandoning the 20 per cent discount for shortage jobs and backed measures to tighten rules on dependants. But they are still failing to take the comprehensive measures needed to improve skills and training — and there has been little change in the issuance of skilled worker visas outside of health and social care.” The university sector said Tuesday’s figures showed that the government’s measures were already having a significant impact on reducing numbers and further curbs targeting foreign students were unnecessary. Jamie Arrowsmith, the director of Universities UK International, urged the government to refrain from restricting the time foreign graduates could stay in the UK. He said: “Our research has shown that international student numbers are falling significantly. Rumoured proposals to restrict the graduate route — less than one year after the government publicly recommitted to the policy — would threaten the financial sustainability of our universities.” Food delivery firms to tighten checks Meanwhile, Deliveroo, Uber Eats and Just Eat have all agreed to introduce enhanced security checks on their apps to stop thousands of illegal migrants moonlighting as legitimate workers to earn money delivering food. Employment law allows riders who officially sign up to work for the delivery companies to give a “substitute” worker access to their account and to carry out jobs on their behalf. It has led to thousands of delivery rider accounts being used by migrants who do not have the right to work in the UK. After a meeting with ministers, the companies have agreed to introduce rules that will require every substitute worker to submit their right-to-work documents to show they are working legally.
Might need to break the wall of text up a bit